Fun Paradise V is actually my 6th Minecraft server I am running if I include the very first 'Waterworld'. The official launch was on Monday, November 17th 2014. This time it runs my own custom modpack for Minecraft 1.7.10 with a lot of Magic, Exploration and only a few fun Tech mods. This time PvP outside of the Spawn dimension is allowed, which is a first time we actually have PvP enabled on the server. The modpack is stable enough to play with, although plenty of bugs still need to be fixed by mod developers. Updates will be scheduled every two weeks for now.

More info can be found on the forum.
If you wish to join, just contact me ;-)

Monday, November 10, 2014

Ever wondered how to approach Live streaming poker without others taking advantage of it? Stream sniping or 'ghosting' is something you might be worried about. Totally understandable, because you do not want others to watch your stream and see your cards and take advantage of it.

Well, there are basically three options:

Cover up! With the streaming software you use, you basically screen-capture a picture or something to cover your hole cards. Simple as that. You can still see them, but on the outputting stream they are covered.

Pro: No delay at all, direct interaction with your audience

Con: Might not be interesting to watch, since viewers see nothing and have to guess. You could still explain of course with re-plays of your hands, removing the 'cover' or possibly use an other scene or screen-capture.

Full delay! Most streaming software like OBS or XSplit has the possibility to add delay to the full stream output. Audio delay adjustment is also possible. However, it is most likely that you can not add delay to the captured video sources alone, keeping the audio sort of 'real time' for viewer interaction as well as the 'face cam' if used in that case.

Pro: You have full delay enough to prevent stream sniping (2-4 mins. usually). This is mostly done and is actually interesting to watch and learn from.

Con: Interaction with the viewers using mic (and cam) is delayed as well, making it hard. The text chat next to the video on most streaming sites should still be without any significant delay. So typing for more direct interaction can then be an option.

Separated delay! With VLC (love it), possibly other software or even hardware like some capture cards, you are capable of delaying the video source(s) while adding no delay to other sources like mic or cam. This way the game you play can be delayed for stream, while the audio/cam is still more or less 'live'. With VLC you basically choose your Video source (or even Audio source if you wish), set the framerate (usually 30 or 60 fps) and set the delay in milliseconds. You then play that source within VLC and capture that VLC source from within your streaming software :-)

Pro: Now your game is delayed, preventing stream sniping, while still being able to have full live interaction with your audience using your mic/cam.

Con: Takes getting used to, since you now have the delay yourself when commentating the game you play. Actions you do in-game take time to show for your audience, before you can actually commentate 'live' on it. Many streamers however have a separate computer/device to monitor the stream, making this a bit easier.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

For a long time I have been wanting to explain, give some insight and share my opinion on viewbotting. Considering I have been live streaming on and off for about 7 years on several different websites like Ustream, Justin TV, Twitch and Hitbox I have seen it start, adapt and sadly enough grow very popular over the last few years. In this post my main focus will be on Twitch, because that's where I had my most recent experiences, with Twitch being the world leading live online streaming service at the moment and having been part of their community for over 2 years. Viewbotting is however certainly not limited to Twitch, it happens with other streaming services as well, just to make that very clear. With coding being one of my hobbies and a history with companies involving security in online gambling, I can clearly see how viewbotting is being done. I am however amazed to see how even the biggest streaming service fails to implement security measurements to prevent this from happening. Although this makes me wonder why, lets not forget this is the internet, full of money hungry people making multi millions of dollars go round and plenty want a piece of it. As long as complaints can be kept to an acceptable minimum and the big companies get their fair share this is probably going to be 'tolerated' for a long time. The majority is ignorant and the internet is shady as fuck, who gives a shit, enjoy the ride!

Monday, September 15, 2014

On August 13th I posted about a way to grab any muted VoDs directly from Twitch's source servers where the audio was still saved with the video. The method used a simple json script provided by the Twitch API itself to get the direct link from the content servers. Things have changed a bit since August 6th and that method no longer works to get VoDs with the audio included. Twitch simply removes the audio completely from the stored video. Similar method to watch any live stream (as well as VoD) in VLC still works however and includes all of the encoding options (audio, source, high, low, medium and mobile).
I don't really care much about Twitch anymore but I was still curious what happened to the audio on muted VoDs, so I decided to briefly look into it once more. Twitch simply can't just delete the audio part since they might get a legit appeal to reinstate the audio in case it had been falsely flagged by Audible Magic's software. Even though I can kind of understand why Twitch would remove the audio from the publicly available content servers, the audio must still be stored somewhere in case they are forced to undo their actions. Well, I can assure you that the audio is still stored separately for limited duration (14-60 days) and can easily be re-added to the video. This is all part of the new VoD system Twitch implemented and actually not even all that hard to achieve. However, the way to get the audio yourself is tricky to say the least. The old method was easy and would not get me into any kind of trouble. Methods to retrieve the audio now however requires a lot more skill and ways I doubt I can get away with. I spent a few hours looking into Audible Magic's code as well as Twitch's implementation and ways they store video after being 'flagged' and came to the conclusion it is most likely possible, but I am NOT interested in actually trying to prove it can actually be done. A few hours spent well to be honest though, since I learned a lot ;-), but as much as I dislike Twitch, I am not a hacker, it's not worth my time and I am certainly not going there. I'll leave it at that ... I suggest you either abide by Twitch's ToS making sure you have all rights for the audio, record locally to not rely on Twitch's terms, or to find another service to stream your content. If you insist however, I bet someone will eventually figure it out for you. Happy hunting :-)

Thursday, August 28, 2014

I noticed the picture menus were kind of broken and applied a quick fix. I am using PrettyPhoto on this website to show pictures in a nice way, but the styling got all messed up. Some scripts seem to have changed or stopped working properly. I am not planning to spend a lot of time on fixing this considering I am working on a new website anyway, so I just did a quick fix. When clicking on thumbnails to see enlarged pictures, some buttons are not showing, but parts of the script is still functional. Hover over the picture to see picture navigation and click outside the picture to go back to the thumbnail view.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Looking for music to use during live streaming in the very near future (Hitbox/Twich, YouTube or possibly elsewhere depending on the content). Any artists out there who would not mind getting some extra promotion? Licensing or written consent needed. Suggestions for Creative Commons/Free to share are also welcome.

Monday, August 18, 2014

Deep deep down we all know what's right and what's wrong. I follow this inner knowledge and seek MY truth as well as I can. I am sure, no matter how different we appear to be, we all boil down to be pretty much the same. This my friends is my so called 'god', I don't need a book and I sure would not call it religion. I am not forcing it on anyone, I just try to be as sensible as I can in a world we live in TOGETHER. I am ME and you are YOU and I love you all! MUAHHH!

Friday, August 15, 2014

Not quite sure what or who triggered the desire to start making music again, but dang I can't wait to do so once my computer setup is done. Maybe the fact some of my online friends are making music or perhaps YouTube videos passing by on Facebook or just my love for music in general has to do with it. Could also be those depressive moments reaching for really old memories I have left on cassette. I just don't know what truly makes me want to, but it doesn't matter either, just one of my many hobbies. I am writing this post while watching/listening to the 'Burma Shave' DVD on my other monitor triggered by Facebook for sure ;-) as Kat Boelskov posted a message just right now, this must be a sign ... lol. Tom Waits reminds me of a mash-up I did a few years ago which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCS09JuDZoo. I have also been listening to some more recent but still old tracks on my PlayStation (Music2000 and MusicGenerator2), which are pretty crappy by the way, now that I listened to them again (enough reason for not posting a Facebook link to those). Most of my best work, made when I started out making music was never recorded or got lost. Too bad I don't have a studio like friends used to have back in the days when I lived in Amsterdam. We had several keyboards, a drum computer, Korg MS20 synthesizer, sampler, Commodore Amiga, PC with Cakewalk, 3 turntables and even an 8-tracker to record with. This got me into DJ-ing/creating quite a bit of Ambient and together we created some pretty good up-beat, dance and hardcore tracks as well, but I was a terrible DJ at that. Some days ago I started looking on the internet for software to use and that led me to this site: http://www.soundation.com. Found out Cakewalk - which we used a lot back in the early 90's - is still going strong with Sonar X3. I hardly have any equipment I can really use, so software will have to do next to possibly hooking up my PSX/PS2, crappy mixing panel and old record player. Not sure what results this will lead to, but at least I am sure to enjoy the ride :-)

Will keep you all up-to-date or remain in silence if my perfectionism doesn't allow me to share whatever creations come from it, which could be anything ...

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

No longer works for VoDs stored since August 6th !!!

Twitch has this nice API for any VoD stored. The following link to their API has all you need to still play any VoD WITH audio: http://api.justin.tv/api/broadcast/by_archive/<VIDEOID>.json. You just have to put the <VIDEOID> in that link which is easy to find by going to any video on Twitch. I will show an example below. Through the API link above you can easily find the urls for the stored 30 minutes video parts in flv format. Look for this: "video_file_url", which is followed by the url you need to playback that part of the video. I usually use VLC for playback of any media and by opening the url found in the API in my browser it will ask me to allow VLC to play the video in the browser. Once allowed it will play perfectly fine WITH the audio that is muted by Twitch when you try to watch the video on their website. I can even watch it within VLC itself instead of in the browser. For any VoD longer than 30 mins, you will find multiple urls in the API link, just look for the next "video_file_url".

This method above can easily be automated with some code/script as a nice feature to embed on your website or have your chatbot provide a link(s) for your viewers when they post a link in chat to one of your broadcasts muted by Twitch. It only needs to connect to the API, do some regex matching and return the url(s) which can then be used for whatever you wish to do with it.

I wonder however how Twitch is actually 'legally' covering their ass with the new implementation for VoDs containing unauthorized third-party audio when the audio itself is actually still there. Twitch says to "respect the rights of copyright owners, and are voluntarily undertaking this effort to help protect both our broadcasters and copyright owners.". I doubt muting the audio on their own website player only does the trick for them. I think the way they implemented it is just plain bullshit.

Now for an example I am going to use the Twitch Weekly - 7/18/2014 - Fishstix, Atrioc, Soma & Carnage (LIVE @ 4PM EDT) broadcast. The link is the following: http://www.twitch.tv/twitch/b/548824097. The number at the end of the link is the <VIDEOID>. So we will use that to get the link to the API for that broadcast, which will then become this link: http://api.justin.tv/api/broadcast/by_archive/548824097.json. That will bring us here. You will then see a lot of information as shown in the picture below with the urls for all 3 parts of the broadcast:

When you watch this broadcast on Twitch, the muted part is after 30 minutes, because they are saved in 30 minutes parts this would be the second url you find in the picture above. The url for that second part of the broadcast is http://store45.media45.justin.tv/archives/2014-7-18/live_user_twitch_1405715067.flv. With VLC or any other flash plugin you will then be able to watch it in the browser (or within VLC) WITH the audio!

Notice how you will also see "transcode_file_urls" Those urls are links to lower resolutions of the same video parts (240p, 360p and 480p). Very useful for those with bad internet connection and buffering issues on Twitch. With VLC for example a similar method can be used to watch a LIVE stream with lower resolution to prevent the 'oh so annoying' buffering issue you might get on Twitch. I will however not go into detail on how to do this, but I might explain that some other time.

For those who want the easy way out, here is a link to a website that does this same 'trick' I explained above by using some code/script and Flowplayer to let you watch VoDs from Twitch WITH audio by just entering the <VIDEOID> as explained above: http://twitchviews.co.uk/

Friday, August 8, 2014

I truly think Twitch could use some YouTube integration at least if acquisition by Google YouTube division is not going to happen. YouTube already has a similar system implemented for recognition of unauthorized copyrighted audio in place. YouTube also has capabilities way beyond Twitch's capabilities to store video. Integrating Google's CDN (Content Delivery Network) would do Twitch really good as well and might help further decrease delays caused by Twitch's choice to use HLS (Http Live Streaming). So far Google's/YouTube's attempt to offer live streaming have kind of failed, but a combination of Twitch/YouTube using best of both could be a more than welcome solution. Even though I completely moved away from Twitch as for streaming myself, I can sure imagine what that would look like ;-)

It feels weird to post on my 'old' website. Can't wait to continue working on my new website, but for that I want my new computer to be fully operational. Too bad building my new computer has to wait a couple more days because I am waiting for a cable that was supposed to be delivered with the Power Supply. Once my new rig is ready and working properly I will clean up and re-install my old gremlin to become part of my new network setup together with my laptop. It's going to be awesome with a total of 4 separate monitors and my laptop. I am glad I have plenty of room for it, although I am even considering to move all to my spare bedroom. Problem with moving there would be the distance and cables needed to create proper connections for internet. Another downside is the lack of comfy-ness, music and atmosphere, becoming too much of an office. So I guess I'd better stick to my setup for the streaming/gaming/work computer in the cupboard next to the dining table. The dining table itself will then get my other 2 monitors for the 2nd desktop (backup/storage/streaming) and laptop (server) as well as a mixing panel and other needed extras. Glad my dining table is very big and easily allows for it while still being able to have a proper meal with 2. I could later on move part of the dining table setup to the left of the cupboard if I wish to. Just need to build some proper furniture to house things.

While I am waiting on that cable to be delivered, I took some time looking at keyboards and mice. I think I think I made a nice choice with the Logitech G19s keyboard and G700s mouse. For now I will be done shopping since I am about to go broke ... lol. But hey, I gave it long enough to think about spending such amounts of money for the full built of my new rig. I know I have some other priorities as well, but I see it as an opportunity to take some other things more seriously from now on. Screw new boobs, this computer is an investment!

I am planning to take coding and design more seriously from now on to return some of the costs. I am mentally forcing myself to do so and to be honest, IT FEELS GOOD :-P I am however not forced to actually find a way to earn that money back since I did manage to save up for it over the last couple of YEARS ... *sigh*. This is probably the reason why I am quite content with this decision, although I still want my boobies :-(

Next to taking things serious there is still plenty of time to have fun. I will soon start creating a new modpack for the dedicated Minecraft server, pick another game again to run as a server on the laptop and start coding some more for the new website. Will discuss a possible new server with Rockstar Hosting and a friend of mine, so he can fully take care of yet another dedicated game server for us to play on. I will help out on that one if needed, but it will be his, so no stress there. Teamspeak will still be around of course and hopefully become more active again. Dang, I ... might even start streaming again ... KAPPA. I said 'might' because I certainly don't want to feel any pressure there. IF I do..., big fat IF ... , it will be on Hitbox for sure. Enough said about Twitch, a full move was long due, but I need to re-code my mIRC chatbot to websockets and therefor not feeling fully prepared yet. I have grown way too fond of Pixy_Bot. Besides, I lost the fun in streaming quite some time ago and I won't be back till I feel I can enjoy myself again without feeling the need to complain and most of all disappointed.

The website is a big project and I sure have plans with it. Hopefully I will manage to turn it into an awesome place that is all about ME and a great hangout for friends around. I am open to suggestions or ideas, *winks* at some of my loyal followers ;-) This goes for mod suggestions for the Minecraft server as well ;-)

Friday, August 1, 2014

I can't just replace my 'old gremlin' and let it collect dust in a corner. Not after all those years of service and struggles to keep up. My gremlin has been treating me very well and doesn't deserve that. So I decided to keep it for a while longer to help me out where needed as part of my Home Network. This means it will keep most of the 'old' but still useful parts, but some of its parts were bought to eventually serve a new computer. The power supply for example, a nice Antec EarthWatts Series EA-750 Green 750W. Taking it out of my gremlin will take away its life if not replaced with another capable PSU. Since I don't have a replacement, this means more shopping to do! Similar problem I have with the graphics card my gremlin still possesses, a reasonably good and sufficient Geforce GT 630 (2gb). Bought cheap after my old and not so capable previous graphics card died on me. Since I never intended to buy myself a 'beast' of a computer, it was supposed to eventually become part of a 'new and upgraded' computer to last me a while longer. Now that it turns out to become a true beast, this graphics card doesn't suit very well. So yeah, once again ... more shopping to do!

Basically I have to build my beast and re-build my gremlin to both serve me in my network. My old gremlin doesn't need much and can't deal with all the 'high-tech' stuff anyway. My new beast however, loves the latest technology and can't deal with the old outdated crappy stuff and even if it can, it would just make it look bad. So at the moment I am trying to decide what goes where and what is needed to keep my gremlin alive to serve as a slave for my new beast.

After some research I came to the conclusion that the PSU in my old gremlin seems a bit outdated. So I just ordered another PSU to go in my beast instead of buying a cheaper 300W-500W PSU for my gremlin. Also finally decided on the CPU cooler to go on top my new i7 and according to the specifications it should fit my motherboard and case. It's huge and will most likely overlap all my RAM memory lanes and might get in the way of the first PCIe lane, but I should be able to fit my graphics card for what I know. I guess we'll find out once I start my build ... lol. Can't wait :-)

Oh ... and I can't make up my mind on buying myself an even better SSD than the two I already bought (Samsung 840 Evo 120gb). I already made a huge jump compared to what I had before, but with one of them going into my gremlin it feels the other is not beast worthy on its own. Need to think about it some more before I make any hasty decisions, but I do like the Samsung 850 pro. Another reason I might want to wait a while longer is the fact my motherboard has an Ultra M.2 (PCIe Gen3 x4) module which allows to go beyond the limits of the SATA 600 standard (600mb/s), but sharing on the other PCIe lanes and thus limiting there when in use. So far I can only find one reasonable alternative (HP Z Turbo Drive) based on the Samsung XP941 SSD 256gb or 512gb (2gb/s) which are for some reason not being sold separately yet. Another option would be the external LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 2 (1tb) which is basically two of those XP941s. Not even sure if I would actually need such speeds although pretty fancy none the less. Maybe in the near future more of those truly fast SSDs will join the market to compete.

At the moment it is impossible to run a dedicated server for Unturned. Nelson, the creator of Unturned is working on Steam server integration and unless I hack the game and bypass Steam, I am not able to run the server as usual. I hope this is not turning into another 'we all want to get rich' thing, allowing me only to rent a proper hosted server. This game is still in beta and running a server without proper server integration is supposed to be 'risky'. As usual, those who just want to run a server from their local computer to play with some friends are the ones getting hurt. The game is not ready yet for proper hosting for the masses with public servers unless you are willing to setup security yourself, which is common for a beta game. So why make running a server impossible and ruin it for those who just want to have some fun with this game??? BECAUSE STEAM and those 'in it for the money' public servers want to get rich, so they keep complaining about all the hacks and risks involved, while working on a way to get best profit. Steam does not allow us to have some fun with a FREE game in BETA!

Friday, July 18, 2014

I shut down the Unturned server to setup another server to play some 7 Days To Die instead. For now I only have my laptop available to setup other game servers, so switching is the only option. In a few weeks we will have another dedicated server for setting up different games we want to play. Until then my laptop is only available for one game at a time ;-) The Minecraft server still runs of course and will always be available.

Let me know if we want to play Unturned again or maybe another game. I am always open to suggestions. Just want to have a good time together and for now that means "7 Days To Die".

Check out 7 Days To Die. Early Access, survival/horror, open world (voxel).

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Playing this reasonably new game called 'Unturned' at the moment and have set up a server for friends to play on. The game can be downloaded for free on Steam here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/304930/
It is a sandbox zombie apocalypse survival game with simplistic looks but fun to play. The server is set to PVE, but if we wish we can do PVP at some point as well. If you wish to join the server, contact me for details.

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Friday, May 23, 2014

The modpack for Fun Paradise IV is great fun to play. I am really enjoying it and it turned out better than I might have expected. It's pretty hard to survive when starting out, but not annoyingly hard where you continuously die or have to eat like every few minutes. If you start out prepared and be smart about how you deal with the level of mobs and lack of food at start, you will do just fine. After that its hard but not too grindy to start on tech and progress. Still have not really touched some of the other mods so I hope those do not turn out to be too OP or not fit the pack after all. Some mods do seem to have caused some issues, but they seem solved for now. This is just a test pack as well to prepare for 1.7.2, although it starts to turn out more serious than I might have wanted. Making a modpack and running a server properly is quite some work. Fixing problems, keeping up-to-date and getting configs just right is not just it. Staying in touch with the players and keeping them posted as well as keeping track on the forum/website takes quite some work too. Then of course the hole 'permission to distribute the modpack' thing ... Well, ... only one mod left to get permission from, Railcraft. I asked him on #railcraft IRC and am waiting on a reply.
Hopefully I feel ok enough to stream again this weekend. I always post to Twitter and Facebook, so keep an eye out. I really want to continue building on the Space Station and go to the Moon for some needed resources to progress in Galacticraft. Yoomanyoo and I tech-ed really fast, but we rely on lava to keep our machines running. Biggest problem is the lack of Ender Pearls to keep chunks loaded and transport our lava with carts from the Nether to our base. Maybe another visit to the End? Not sure, we kept dying and were lucky to even get some resources from there. A jetpack was needed to prevent dying to the Ender Dragon and fly off to a 'safe' place for some mining. We are also short on Iridium, so a Mass Fab is prolly best choice to spend the few iridium we have on. More power is needed though and we don't feel like expanding our 'Earth' base for maybe some Nuclear Power. We want to set base in Space and moving everything becomes harder the more we build on Earth. I am excited though and hope to be able to play with Yoo this weekend. He has been pretty busy with 'real life' during weekdays. I purposely waited on doing certain things, to not let him miss out.

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Re-added Hunger Overhaul again after tweaking the server! Should function properly again without noticeable lag, although its probably still more CPU intensive compared to other mods due to most likely the way its coded. I am happy to have it back though, love it!

Monday, May 5, 2014

Started playing tonight with the new modpack and a fresh world 'Fun Paradise IV'. Also started streaming again, but no promise or whatsoever to follow any schedule. Was great to see some of my regulars right away again, wuv you all <3 So far I had fun starting out ... apart from Twitch being terrible.

Friday, April 25, 2014

Got a nice small modpack together to test with till all mods are ready for 1.7.2 to start a new server with. After a few minor changes all seems to work pretty well, although I am curious what will happen with IC2 with yet again Enet problems breaking things. Also not sure about future compatability between GregTech and Buildcraft. The way it seems to be going now, GregTech might as well become a standalone mod without relying on IC2. Would also love to get rid of MFR, because I want to keep this modpack really hard, but as OP as this mod is, it does have a RedNet system that is by far as buggy as Project Red or Red Logic. So we are not using any of the MFR stuff apart from RedNet. Will see what happens and what changes need to be made once 1.7.2 is ready for all mods in this pack. Will see what happens ...
I am truly enjoying this pack for a while already and yes, its very damn hard! No Ender chests or any ways to teleport items or liquids. No portals either apart from the Vanilla Nether portals, which do kinda work with Railcraft though. GregTech changed a lot and still is adding more and more resources as well as functionality. I have a feeling he is preparing for IC2 and Buildcraft to disappear? For those who last played GregTech in 1.4.7-1.5.2, you will be in for a treat ;-) Love the pipes and covers and they are truly advanced and allow for very compact setups. Logi-pipes are of course great as well, but are of course based on Buildcraft. I do however prefer them over the in my opinion way too OP Applied Energistics networks that I hate using and seem like magic and unreal to me. I bet in a month or two I will be able to do some first tests for 1.7.2 with this pack. Might add/remove a few mods and make some modifications, but I like this small pack as it is.
Will run this modpack on the server as soon as 1.7.2 is stable and ready. This pack will however not run 7 days a week, because the server is meant for projects to work/build on. So sometimes I might have to backup the world and install a project instead causing some downtime for the multiplayer server. If you would like to join the server in the near future, let me know.

Saturday, April 12, 2014

It's been a while since I lasted posted, but here's an update. Been pretty busy for others and struggling with myself at the same time. I am always struggling, yay for being me. Circumstances led to time for myself again and here I am feeling eager to start on several things, although I am still feeling kinda down and without energy. I am itching to start Minecraft projects, some coding stuff and maybe even streaming, but at the same time scared to end up doing too much and forcing myself to quit again. I am full of ideas though and I feel there are opportunities I should really grab. Remaining indecisive, doing half of anything, is not the solution. Hopefully once I truly allow myself to dive in, I will be able to get some things done and finish some long awaited projects.

Some things that are planned and/or being worked on:

Moving away from Blogger and re-building my website from scratch on a true host.

Complete new website will most likely contain a lot of WebGL and 3D effects, but no spoilers yet.

Project Pixy, starting a new Minecraft project which includes GregTech ;-P

Fun Paradise II & III - The Movie (uploads to YouTube)

Might be doing a Minecraft building project which I have been asked to help out with, but needs further discussion first.

Making music again, it's been ages and always loved working on tracks. Could do some cool video with it for YouTube uploads.

several other ideas to work on over time.

Working on myself instead of fleeing into helping others, love it and hate it, I don't allow myself time to get anywhere myself.

All-in-all a lot of work and not sure what has priority. Considering I usually do all by myself some of these things will definitely take some time getting finished. I will just work on whatever I feel like at the moment, so I don't really have a schedule at all. I noticed I cant really deal with pressuring myself too much. Love being 'Miss Perfect', but hate having such high goals/standards. So yeah, what the heck, we shall see. I should focus on my own life which DOES have priority, but at the same time DONT feel like it at all. So tired and burned out, yet so ambitious and anxious to accomplish anything. I might as well not care all too much at the moment, because I am more than happy to at least do something and hopefully that will lead to 'loving' myself a bit more. Stop thinking and worrying, just do something, anything!

Mehh, just mehhh ... and dang ... once again, ... I start posting and writing and I feel guilty towards myself for not doing this more often. It does me well and makes me feel 'real' again. And another thing ... why do I feel so effing scared? Prolly afraid to fail the things I promise myself to accomplish ... *sigh*.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Twitch changed part of their ToS concerning 'promotions' or usually referred to as 'give-aways'. They changed ToS after a big streamer, who I won't mention got banned for violating Twitch's ToS. There were most likely other channels shut down as well, because I cant imagine he was the only one holding similar 'give-aways' for subscribers only, which came down to holding a raffle. When subscribing and thus having to pay a certain amount of money which gets divided between Twitch and the streamer and only then having a chance to win in a give-away is considered illegal by US law. So Twitch changed their ToS to rule out any infringements for themselves. Here is the part of the ToS involved (http://www.twitch.tv/user/legal):
--------------------10. Broadcastersf. Promotions

Broadcasters may promote, administer or conduct a promotion on, through or utilizing Twitch (a “Promotion”). If you are a Broadcaster and you choose to promote, administer or conduct a Promotion, you must follow the following rules:

You may not conduct a Promotion if the aggregate value of all prizes awarded in the Promotion exceeds $5,000;

Your Promotion may not require the entrant to submit any User Content(as defined below);

Your Promotion may only be open to residents of the fifty (50) United States (including Washington D.C.);

Entrants must be 18 or older, or the age of majority under applicable law.

Your Promotion must be free to enter.

Generally, your Promotion should not require entrants to endorse a product or otherwise comment or provide an opinion on a product in such a way that a reasonable person may believe the endorsement, comment or opinion is from the entrant. If it is possible that you may be asking an entrant to make such an endorsement, comment or opinion, you must require the entrant to disclose that he or she receives a promotion entry in exchange for such endorsement, comment or opinion;

You may not indicate that Twitch is a sponsor or co-sponsor of the Promotion.

Your Promotion must have a set of Official Rules that contain all details, disclosures and other information required by applicable law and that otherwise comply with law.

Your Promotion must be conducted, and prizes awarded, as described in your Official Rules.

You must comply with all applicable laws, rules, and regulations in your execution of the Promotion.

There are a number of laws and requirements associated with promotions, so ask an expert if you have questions or concerns.

You, at your expense, will be solely responsible for all aspects of your Promotion, including, without limitation, the execution, administration, and operation of the Promotion; drafting and posting the Official Rules; selecting winners; issuing prizes; and obtaining all necessary third-party permissions and approvals, including, without limitation, filing any and all necessary registrations and bonds. Twitch has the right to remove your Promotion from the Twitch Service for any reason.

--------------------

So this means that even if I were to do a give-away, only US (50 states) 18+ citizens can actually win? I am located in Europe, The Netherlands to be precise, but anything I would wish to give away can only go to the US viewers? This seems really unfair for a streaming site with streamers from all over the world.
Apart from these rules in the ToS, it is still a lot of work to set up a proper 'promotion' or give-away, a lot of rules apply according to US law. For example, you will need to show all participants in the give-away as well as show the winner properly. Drawing the winner needs to be done publicly as well. It needs a full set of rules and disclosures to show the viewer how exactly the raffle will work and who is actually eligible to join. Now you will have to somehow be able to be sure someone is US based and 18+ of age. Basically this cant be done without having viewers sign a legal document before they enter any give-away. This seems to be almost impossible considering ...
I can see how a raffle should most likely not be allowed or a lottery for that matter, but damn, even plain old free for all give-aways are no longer allowed. So giving an advantage as a reward for subscribing to a channel is NOT done, nor is it fair to exclude non-subscribers in a give-away, this would be called a raffle and considered illegal! I can see that, although many streamers used to do so or similar.
Now what about Twitch Coins or whatever they call this virtual currency on many a Twitch channel where they reward you in all kinds of ways? Become a subscriber and get rewarded with an entry in a give-away! Watch us more often to get more of this virtual credit for even better rewards! Multiple entries for subbing to a channel or adding increased chances in give-aways through virtual currency! This to me basically comes down to the same as holding a raffle and should be banned according to Twitch's ToS. Too bad I still see this happen on quite a few channels though.

Why not just call it a donation and deal with it that way? Chances for winning a gift should be equal for every viewer, being subbed or not, watching often or not, being a whatever or not. All that is needed is being there when the give-away is being held so you can actually receive your gift/donation through whatever means the internet has to offer. The internet is World Wide and not limited to the US (50 states) only. Or just ban give-aways all together and not allow them at all! Make up your mind Twitch, before Twitch becomes one big commercial money making race, or ... wait, it is already?! Nothing wrong with a well earned buck though ;-)

Sunday, January 26, 2014

I need to get my 'real life' sorted so I don't have to worry as much anymore. I want to be the good old 'happy' me again who enjoys the things she does. I need to stop forcing myself to continue doing things I used to enjoy so much. With the joy being overshadowed by worries and neglecting myself there is no true fun. If I do not take care of myself right now, it will not end well. I want fun again ... Don't get me wrong, I love you all, but for now I have to put myself first. Seems egoistic and it does feel that way for me. However I do realize both you and me will benefit eventually.
I love to stream, I love running a server for you, I love to hang out with you guys and gals, I love to do many things with or for you all. Too bad you and me can only truly enjoy these things when I am feeling well. For a long time I have not truly been enjoying this anymore, but forced myself to continue. This has nothing to do with any of you, but all has to do with me. I try to enjoy, I pretend to smile and we do have our 'good' moments, but deep down I am crying rivers and feel unhappy, not because of you, but because of ME. This needs to change.
My headaches are terrible and seem to recur on a regular basis now. I still haven't had surgery and this won't even happen, because I stopped making appointments needed to get there. My house is a mess and has been for over a year. Not answering the phone, checking my mail, or responding to the doorbell. I am spiraling down and down into depression. I am as depressed as can be and need to put a hold on this before I reach the bottom. I have tried and fought so damn hard all my life to get somewhere, but got frikkin' tired, exhausted and burned-out. Disappointed, upset, angry ... I hardly feel or care anymore ... fleeing is not a solution, this needs to end, right NOW.
I am sorry, I will be around, I can't do this alone, I need those who love me or care for me. I will be there when I am and won't be when I am not, just can't make any promises. I need to take care of ME now that I still can. Hope you can understand and this doesn't come as a shock.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

What the fuck! Three times in a row now that Twitch frustrates the shit out of me. Last weekend on Saturday Twitch decided to disconnect my stream several times and dropping frames on me for not being able to stay connected to me. Then that Sunday I could not even stay connected at all (and as of yet no reply from Twitch Support). Now tonight I can't even connect to a server forcing me to quit XSplit through my task manager even.

So yay ... Hitbox only tonight! Come join the fun, because I am not letting my night being ruined by Twitch!Devilin Pixy on Hitbox

The long awaited 'last wipe' for Starbound is almost there. Soon we will finally be able to truly start something big without too much of a worry to lose all again. Can't wait and really looking forward to it.

Yay, finally done clicking and copy/paste-ing an announcement to all my followers on Twitch(420). Now I can completely focus on Hitbox. I will try to stream to both channels for a while if all works well on Twitch's end. Lately I couldn't stream for the life of me on Twitch. Looking forward to streaming on Hitbox though and can't wait to move over completely.

As for the Stream Team, I can still use some suggestions for a Team name on Hitbox. So please let me know any good suggestion you can come up with!

The list of suggestions collected so far:

Jobless Delinquents

RPG-Real People Gaming

The Lukewarm Gamers

The Hit casters

Squid McSquiddingtons (or one of the other 15 squid or derpy names)

The Visual Orgasm

Horatio Hornblowers

Hansom Harassers

One of the 50 squid names

Twitch Refugees(or some variant)

OLS-Old Legendary Soldiers

XStream

The Sandbox

The Box Office

Bare with Us

RatedR

The Twerks

Team Myth

Dream Team

Mythical Cast

Fairy Universe

The Old Foogies

I will be streaming some more L.A. Noire tomorrow. Hope to see you all on Twitch (if it works) and Hitbox (works so far)
:-)

Hope to get to talk to most who are part of the new Stream Team for Hitbox today﻿.
We have to decide on a name really soon and discuss some other things.
Once we have a name for our Team on Hitbox, we can start working on things:

Website

Domain name

Logo and Design/Layout

Main Page

Team Info

Streamer individual profiles (portal to our own babies)

Streaming page

Forum

Anything else?

Hitbox

Register Team name

Logo and Design/Layout (Profile)

Introduction, text, links (Profile)

Schedule(s)?

Anything else?

Public TeamSpeak 3

DNS

Permissions

Logo and Design/Layout

Rooms

Anything else?

Anything else?

Facebook/Twitter/YouTube or other Social Media?

Chat Bot?

Anything Else?

Any suggestions for a name for our Team, they are still welcome. Interested and willing to help out in any way, let me know.

Monday, January 13, 2014

I am looking for help with coding a chat bot to be used on our Stream Team channels on Hitbox. Those of you that know me from Twitch also know I coded my own chat bot (Pixy_Bot) on there using mIRC. My personal chat bot on Twitch was quite popular among my viewers, especially for the music request feature. However, the chat on Hitbox uses websockets (HTML5) and not IRC. Anyone interested and willing to help out coding is more than welcome to let me know.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

I am excited to announce that we are going to start a Stream Team on Hitbox. We can however use some help with thinking of a good name for our team to use. We prefer the name to not refer to or associate with any of the individual streamers. If anyone has some good suggestions, then please let me know, would be much appreciated.

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Little Big Adventure 2 (LBA 2) is a computer game developed by Adeline Software International and initially released on May 31, 1997.
It was later re-released by Activision in June 1997 in both North America, and in Brazil, under the name Twinsen's Odyssey. In July 1997, both Electronic Arts and Virgin Interactive Software re-released LBA 2 - Virgin Interactive Software doing so under the name of "Twinsen's Odyssey". LBA 2 sold over 600,000 copies worldwide.
The game is a sequel to Little Big Adventure (also known as Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure). LBA 2 was also the third game created under the label of Adeline Software International. The game features three dimensional environments and full motion video, and all of its music is in CD-DA quality.

Been so much fun playing this game again. Great memories to when I first played this game back then. First time however to completely finish it. Little Big Adventure 2 was even better than the first with a lot more movie scenes added and better game-play. The 3d environments felt great, with some exceptions there when you end up in an awkward camera angle. Biggest problem I had with LBA 2 after playing the first, was the new key-binds causing me to mess up quite a few times :-) Adorable, great characterization, cutscenes and story. Loved it! Would rate it 8 out of 10.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

First of all, sorry if I have not been around much lately, been dealing with some health issues. I should be fine again now though, so I will do my best to be around.

I will be back to streaming again tonight and there will be some changes. I am going to try hitbox.tv, even though it's still in beta. I won't move over from one day to the next however to give you all time to adjust and hopefully start following me there. This means that I will be streaming for a few hours on Twitch first and then continue on hitbox for a few more hours after. It all looks promising and hopefully the switch will work out well for me. So please ... HIT ME UP on http://hitbox.tv/devilinpixy! Hope to see you all there ;-)

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

The last few weeks I have been looking into this new Streaming website for gaming as an alternative to Twitch TV. As you all know I am pretty much fed up with Twitch TV and I would love to move away as soon as possible. Only thing I ever truly liked about it, after my forced move from Justin TV for the games is the great gaming community.

This new Streaming website is Hitbox TV and started in October last year and is still in beta. The people behind this are René Weinberger (CTO) and Martin Tyler (CEO) who both formerly worked for Own3d TV. Yes, I know about what happened to Own3d TV and I know they never have been able to pay off their full debts. Were these people to blame? I doubt it, since Martin was hired as Own3d's CFO to try fix the money problems when they were already in deep shit and René was just the technical mastermind behind the core technology and didn't want to see his hard work gone. Anyways, enough about what happened to Own3d TV and see what Hitbox TV has to offer.

First glance at the looks of the channels and website design makes me think of a copied Twitch layout ... hmmm. That's a bummer, but then again, how else would you fit video and chat nicely together? This way is probably easiest to get started and makes the viewer feel sort of familiar. Another thing that kind of annoys me is the video showing all the way at the top of the page. I would love to see the menu icons/buttons in the bar on the left as a top bar instead, lowering the video and chat just that bit and allowing more room for both on width. I do like the way the icons/buttons work though. I also searched for a way to give my channel some kind of a personal touch, but all I could find is an upload option for a profile picture. I would truly love to see ways to give your channel a personal touch, preferably in HTML instead of the 'limited markdown' that Twitch introduced quite some time ago. As for design, I feel it needs more work and I can only imagine them being busy on it.

The video quality is great and shows no lag or loading issues at all. Of course the quality does depend on how the streamer has it set up. You can only watch it in source quality/resolution. This is RTMP streaming as it should be, where Twitch decided to use HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) to be able to reach iOS and mobile devices. Setting up your stream is easy and you can use any streaming software like OBS, XSplit, FFSplit or even Adobe FMLE. You can tweak your stream a lot better compared to Twitch by using Variable BitRate (VBR) again as well as Constant BitRate (CBR) which was forced upon streamers by Twitch. All-in-all, I really prefer this way of streaming and it doesn't limit the smaller streamers who can't deliver high quality. On Twitch you would miss out if you can't meet the 'excellent' requirements. This means you won't be available on mobile or console and viewers won't be able to select their desired resolution for which you usually need to be partnered anyway. To be honest, there should not even be a need to lower your resolution in the first place when watching a proper 1080p high quality stream unless you really have crappy internet and a toaster for a computer.

The chat is great! No significant delay, which allows for being interactive with your viewers again ... woot!!! This is something Twitch screwed up completely with their huge delay nowadays. For most streamers, chat interactivity is of utmost importance. I truly hate it when I am trying to have a conversation with my viewers and getting responses about a minute or more later. The chat on Hitbox seems to be almost instant which is a huge plus! On the downside however, it uses websockets for their chat, which means you are not able to connect through IRC. Nice to have HTML 5, but my chat bot which uses IRC is now useless. However, promises have been made to work on IRC functionality, so I will just have to be patient to see what they come up with I guess. On a side note, NO MORE EMOTES, YAY! Although there seem to be plenty of weird looking smiley faces and pictures ... Kappa shows a sushi picture? ... lol

Video playback is another thing that seems to work great, where it takes ages to load a video in the archive on Twitch, it takes only a second on Hitbox TV to load and no buffering during playback either. I did read about issues with editing streamed video and the way it cuts it into parts by default though. I can't really judge on this myself, since I haven't tested this myself yet. Supposedly there is also a feature to upload to YouTube. Will have to do some test streaming to check on this.

Oh well, I will definitely keep an eye out on Hitbox TV myself and get ready to ditch Twitch, although I will not move away from Twitch TV just yet. You might see me stream on Hitbox though if Twitch decides to have one of those !@#%$#* nights again. I love my Pixy Bot and I will see what I can do about coding Pixy Bot using websockets and prepare my viewers on Twitch TV for the move as well as preparing quite a few other changes needed. So start following me on http://hitbox.tv/DevilinPixy. Keep up the good work Hitbox TV and hopefully you guys can manage growth very well. I am getting ready to move to the alternative I have been wishing for ...